


Poster Girl

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: F/M, Fluff, happy happy happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You want a princess? I wanted a knight in shining armor. I thought I’d found him…but he turned out to be a loser in tin foil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poster Girl

“She’s just a poster girl, Chester,” says Mike, deleting a drum fill on his pro-tools rig and swigging his beer. “She’s a poster girl. You buy a photo of her and jack off to it. You don’t…you don’t fucking…follow her around like a lap dog.”

Mike knows everything. God pointed his almighty finger at Mike Shinoda when he was a child and granted him the gift of infinite wisdom. Chester just forgets sometimes.

He’d like to tell Mike that Talinda may not be as intelligent as he is but she isn’t stupid. When Sam stumbled drunkenly home with love bites on her neck, smelling of a cologne he didn’t own, Chester headed to the closest bar. Slumping down on a stool, he began knocking back tequila after tequila, and he looked up with hazy eyes as a petite brunette slipped onto the stool next to him with a shy smile. Resting her chin on her hand she cocked her head to the side and murmured, “Nothing lasts forever.”

He wants to tell Mike to shove it because, really, Mike’s married to Anna Lovejoy. Word spreads quickly. Word spreads, and it says that Anna Lovejoy is a bigger whore than any poster girl.

Talinda is a free spirit. When Chester asked her what she does for a living, her face lit up and she said “I’m a model.” Noting the slightly off-put look that flickered across Chester’s face she continued, “I love hamburgers, my sneakers are grey from wear and I love vegetating in front of the TV…that sound better?”

It did. Chester smiled and bought her a tequila and said, “Yeah, that sounds better.”

It sounded like everything Sam wasn’t. Sam, with her hair and makeup always fixed before she made a run to the store. Sam, with her shoes shined and her clothes pressed as if every day was a photo opportunity.

Chester’s eyes filled with tears, which he blamed on the tequila, as he recalled her smudged makeup and messy hair and harsh laugh as she told him she doesn’t love him and Draven isn’t his son. She told him that she doesn’t know who Draven’s father is.

Talinda laughed airily then, smiling to the ceiling of the bar and watching the fan blades spin slowly around, ploughing through the stale air. She turned to him and smiled, and said, “You remind me of me. You want a princess? I wanted a knight in shining armor. I thought I’d found him…but he turned out to be a loser in tin foil.”

Talinda. Happy-go-lucky Talinda with her brilliant smile and no sour history to hurt her. Talinda, with her Playboy body and open mind. And Talinda was everything Sam used to be.

Mike clicks his tongue and sighs, “Chester, she’s still just a kid. What does she know? What the hell do you see in her?”

“I see somebody who’s willing to stay with me,” Chester snaps, clambering to his feet and glaring down at the emcee who smirks smugly back at him.

“She’ll never love you,” he says, turning back to the pro-tools rig and stroking the ball of his mouse.

Chester groans and rolls his eyes, and says, “Love fucking hurts, Mike. So I’d prefer that she didn’t love me.” He pulls the door of his friend’s studio open and leans against the doorjamb. “Besides, she’s one of the best things that’s happened to me for a while. A blessing in disguise.”

“Disguised as a cheap hooker,” Mike mutters, and he doesn’t take his eyes off the screen in front of him.

Chester pushes himself off the door and walks away. He listens as Mike tells him to get a grip, slow down and smell the roses. Mike tells him, Talinda’s just a rebound and reassures him that he and Sam will be back together by the end of the month.

Chester smiles grimly and realises he doesn’t even wish for Sam to take him back anymore.


End file.
